


The Virgin Of Heywood

by Nocturnalchild



Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Attempting a plot, Cybercity, Cyberpunk, F/M, Falling In Love, Family, Feelings, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friendship/Love, Fuck the system, Gang War, Golden Boi Jackie, I Don't Even Know, I don't understand science, I'm bad at cybernetics, I'm bad at plots but I try, Jackie Welles Lives, Jackie has a heart of gold, Loyalty, Made For Each Other, Not Canon Compliant, OC is a bit shy, Some Plot, True Love, Valentinos and moxes and 6th street and it's war, We love Jackito, fuck Corpo, kicking ass together, lovers fight together, standing for each other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-16 22:21:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28714221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nocturnalchild/pseuds/Nocturnalchild
Summary: Oh, that's my first time writing outside of my main fandom! WOW!There is some major divergences from canon here, the main one is that Jackie LIVES, yes, big spoiler !Hope you enjoy my little attempt at this...whatever this means.
Relationships: Jackie Welles and female V, Jackie Welles/ female OC, Jackie Welles/oc, Jackie Welles/original female character
Comments: 6
Kudos: 20





	1. 106.9  30 Principales

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, that's my first time writing outside of my main fandom! WOW!  
> There is some major divergences from canon here, the main one is that Jackie LIVES, yes, big spoiler !  
> Hope you enjoy my little attempt at this...whatever this means.

Rachel stood behind the steel blinds, just like it was her habit after work. All lights off, no news, no braindance, no holograms. Just darkness and silence and an unquenchable desire to silence Night City sounds, close her eyes and wipe all the blue-red neon brightness off her eyes, clean her system of all the pollution of the world she learned to survive in for three years, already.

The beeps of her microwave didn’t perturb her contemplation. Dinner was ready, but she wasn’t hungry, even when she took all the pain to prepare it herself. Her integrated vending machine was empty too, quiet and unplugged. 

Rachel lived alone. She left her farm after her grandmother’s death several years ago, looking for a better place to be, looking for a better opportunity to take, looking for a background noise to fill the solitude and the grey emptiness of wastelands. And while she thought she had found all of that, still she was as unhappy as the day she left her land. The first daze and excitement of being in a city of millions rapidly wearing out, leaving place to fear, endless tiredness and loneliness as the daily struggles seemed to never cease and as she found herself isolated, unable to connect with anyone in a place where everybody seemed to try to tear her off of her flesh and soul. 

“Mi hija,” The old owner of ‘Jerry’s’, the diner she worked in as a cook, often told her “the more refined one is the unhappy” and she always smiled at the veiled compliment.

Rachel felt lucky to find some semblance of peace in her building. A miraculous thing, away from gangs, solos, and corpo plebs that populated that goddamned city. Most of her neighbors were small restaurant and diner owners, old people that seemed to live by the old days’ rules, well for most. Some Moxes girls and boys too, but those were quiet and never brought any trouble near her door.

Well, till now.

Lately, Rachel had noticed an unnatural movement take over her quiet neighborhood of Wellsprings. She always tried her hardest to stay away from trouble. She knew her vulnerabilities too well, her non enhanced body equally a blessing and a curse. She walked the streets bare faced, her natural curly brown hair framing her gentle, sweet features. Big, black eyes always alert, anxious, scanning her surroundings.

And she knew, she had all the legit reasons to worry, that one day, her archaic way of living would get her into trouble. And she was right.

And trouble did come, under the famed name of “Valentinos”.

Even if she knew them harmless, those godforsaken relentless Casanovas of modern times, she couldn’t respond to their advances. The more she evaded them, the more they insisted. The more a woman stood out from the crowd, the more she was a target for a Valentino. Their charming manners and polite approaches didn’t do it for her, nor did their expensive cars and promises of dinners in the most hyped places of Night City, even less their odd taste for colorful clothes, golden jewelry and cyberware enhancements, visible on their harsh faces in sinuous lines, glistening under the halogen, bright sunlight.

“Dios! eres mas hermosa que la Virgen!” " habla con nosotros, bella hermana!" Was the most common line she heard every time she ventured outside, lately. She knew all Heywood was their territory, Wellsprings though, wasn’t that infected with their presence before. Just a few weeks ago, it was a relatively gang free area, but now, their numbers augmented in her neighborhood, more precisely around her building. Weird, worrying gatherings at the foot of her building, noisy music and chatting that filled the quiet late night air. Rachel, behind her steel curtains, couldn’t fathom the reason.

“Jerry… Please, can I ask you something?” She finally decided to voice her worries, while absent mindedly chopping the synthetic onions for today’s burritos. 

“Rare you do, mi hija, of course you can” The old man smiled, his wrinkles deepening around his hazel eyes.

“Those Valentinos, lately … do you know the reason why there are so many of them around here?”

The old man sighed, his smile vanishing.

“You really live in you small locked bubble, don’t you.”

She nodded, shrugged, smiling kindly to her only friend and employer, knowing very well that his remarks were all kindhearted.

“A few weeks earlier, the Valentinos’ leader, Orta, had something going on with one of the Moxes. Lyna, the pink haired plastic girl, was living just above you, sure you saw her, that one.”

_Was?_

She nodded, eyes big with concern, Orta’s name brought up in a conversation presaged nothing good.

“Well, the guy was a two timer, he was dating a 6th Street gang girl, turned out to be their leader’s, Gunner’s, niece. The affair with the Moxes girl reached her ears, girl is no easy, wanted revenge. Lyna’s body was found near Lizzie’s, Q had a word with that ass of Gunner, aiming for a quiet settlement, meeting ended in worse terms than it had begun”

Rachel felt dizzy, never had she heard that many gang leaders names in the same sentence. Her heart hammering in her temples, she braced herself for the worse.

“Now rumors say Gunner wants to expand his territory, his gang wants to take over the building, and the Valentinos sided with the Moxes. They’re keeping their eyes open, securing the area for the few working guys and girls left there.”

Jerry’s eyes went dark and deep concern was painted on his face. Rachel let her electric knife fall on the counter, suddenly ashen.

“I’m sorry, mi hija, thought you knew at least the outlines of the story, since you live there… you know…”

“I had no idea… none, Jerry. Don’t worry about me, I live hidden here, should be alright.” She faked a smile, the words said more to comfort herself than Jerry.

“Listen” He stepped closer, put his trembling hands on her shoulders, eyes seeking hers “ If something happens, old Jerry is always here for you, you know that, no need for me to deliver a speech, understood?”

Rachel nodded, a tight smile barely there, as she fought to calm her nerves. As much as she trusted Jerry, she knew that in case of major complications, he wouldn’t be able to do anything, if something, just draw the attention to him and in the worst cases, lose his life, and for what?

That night, Rachel hugged her arms around her as she traced her way to her building. Night City lights were more unnerving than ever, dark alleys more gruesome, cybertech stores more seedy, life more suffocating than she ever thought it would be. She tried to look up at the sky, but all she could see were never-ending skyscrapers, displaying their flashy holograms, blocking any vision of stars she could hope to find.

Entering the courtyard of her building, the Valentinos were already there, more numerous, displaying their famous golden guns, deep into some competing conversations about their conquests or biowares. She recognized some of them, the most dutiful in their advances. They all seemed focused on someone that night though, she noticed with relief as she was about to pass her way near their noisy group, when a booming laugh startled her. Her surprised eyes looked around for the source of the disruption, and that’s when her eyes met his.

A beat of lashes, a split second, that’s all it took for their eyes to connect, and she felt the moment stretch, like in a braindance, and it was, maybe, one of the rare times Rachel regretted not having any cyberware connected to her ocular system, so that she could replay the moment over and over, just to seek, search why it felt as it did. Why it felt like everything quietened, like stars returned to the sky, like her fatigue and worries and fear evaporated, like peace could be attained.

Rachel averted her eyes, heart looping in her stomach. She was foolish. For all she knew, the new guy could be a lead of some sorts, someone she knew didn’t want to be noticed by, by any means.

She hurried into the elevator, head kept low, hands deeply tucked in her raincoat pockets. As soon as the door of her apartment slid open, she ran to her window, trying to look for the newcomer from her safe spot. She could distinguish the gang members still talking and laughing loudly. And fuck, if he wasn’t the brashest, biggest, scariest one among them. She could distinguish his haircut, samurai styled, she could see the glitz of all his gold jewels, thick around his neck and massive wrists, she could guess the size of his hands, toying with a heavy gun as if it was a boy’s plaything. He was heavily cybered up, too, and his black vest covered large, strong shoulders. All his being sweated of brutality, danger and death, and she couldn’t comprehend, as her brows knotted, the reason he piqued her interest in the strangest, most unfamiliar way.

At some point, her overtired system pulled her out from her spot by the window and into her bed, and she drifted to sleep, all worries and fears relegated to the morning.

Downstairs, in the wet tiled courtyard, Latino tunes boomed in the still, vicious air, till the first hours of dawn. Sound roaring from the open doored cars, full volume, 106.9 30 Principales.


	2. A Splash of Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jackie has his own understanding of the word "flirt" ^^

A passing folly.

She thought it would be just a passing folly. Yet every night, in the solitary confinement of her apartment, she found her eyes dragged to the same spot again, smiling against her will when he couldn’t see her. Even from up there, she could hear his laugher, bigger than the city.

At first it was mere amusement, splashes of colors in her routine, splatters of unexplained joy as the days passed, as glances and acknowledgments multiplied and as she grew confident, all fear to be noticed vanishing, cause now all she wanted was to be seen, a bit heady every time his green eyes met hers. He was usually leaning against a bike, his bulky frame towering over the others. It always seemed like he owned the conversation, and she wondered what his name was, or if he was really one of these Valentinos punks. She started to doubt, she never saw him roaming Wellsprings, this one, or at least, she doubted he ever joined his peers in their hearts conquest activities… She didn’t know if she felt relief or disappointment. 

Jerry said that danger was rather coming from Gunner’s men than from those Valentinos posers; at the end of the day, they were here to protect the building’s residents. And as the days passed and tensions heated up the viscous atmosphere of the low subdistricts, she started to get used to their presence, even feel safe around them. 

They started to take more liberties too, eating and staying in the area’s small restaurants, or buying from the vendors populating the ghettos, crashing in the old-world buildings. Jerry’s place started to be more packed with the newcomers too, to the old man’s displeasure.

“Dios, these pendejos, multiplying like swamp rats, will make all my good patrons flee!” He grumbled, so grumpy and agitated, and it was bad of his blood pressure, Rachel thought.

“Don’t sweat it, Jerry.”

Rachel replied absentmindedly, none the wiser of her old friend looking at her, a sly smile forming on his wrinkled lips.

“Oy, change of weather?”

Rachel blushed.

“Who’s he? So I can kick his tatted ass.” Old Jerry could be so nosy when he was at it, but she just laughed, swept his joke off with a dismissive hand, keeping her unassuming growing curiosity for herself, hiding her flushed face behind a menu, pretending to update the plates of the day.

“Heard they hired merc now...intimidation" he sneered, "tells nothing good, nothing good.” Jerry shook his head, heading out of the kitchen. If that was true, it could only mean real trouble, lurking not real far.

*

Rachel clutched her raincoat harder, cold, rough rain was washing Night City, its buildings oozing with their residents’ sins and crimes, releasing damp, oily stench into the air. Rachel wore her mask, she was almost sure a new germ circulated in the thin rainwater particles that evening, and sure enough, contamination sirens wouldn’t take long to circle and barrages to settle, closing the area. Decontamination drones would roam above the streets later that night, spraying their shit all over the chromed walls.

She sighed. If that meant something, it was that her new object of interest wouldn’t be having his little gathering tonight. The street and the courtyard were quiet, glistening with the reflections of ad panels and vending machines.

“Fuck you Jackie, why are we even here?! Fucking fuck, getting our ass wet like scabby dogs… Major leagues my ass…”

What sounded like a mildly irritated woman’s voice reached Rachel’s ears as she approached her elevator, pulling her off from her musings.

“Jaina, we’re paid to do this, gotta be sure everyone’s in. Wanna stay, wanna leave. Ain’t budging my ass.”

“Aren’t ya getting a bit personal? Jack?” the woman insisted, playfulness winning over irritation, and the laugh that followed, Rachel couldn’t have missed for anything in the world, heart in her guts all of a sudden. She could sense a new thing mingling with her panic, acid and unpleasant as she caught a glimpse of the pair, the woman leaning in, tickling his sides as his callous giggles resumed with greater intensity.

Rachel sneezed, drawing the couple’s attention to her. She cursed under her teeth, eyes connecting with his again, something flashing beneath his mirthful irises. She could swear he was about to take a step forward, mouth agape, as his companion looked between them, confused, before Rachel hurried to dial her floor number and the elevator went up with a whining grind.

She couldn’t believe herself, she felt so senseless and even more naïve than she knew she was. And what a jinxed day that had been. She knew it since the morning, when she was jostled by NCPD fuckers, got her knee injured, then the rain, then…this.

As her fatigued feet gathered her up, and the hot shower water washed her thoughts away, Rachel cried quietly, gulping down her emotions, bottling up her hopes and little girl’s wistful thoughts.

*

“Lunch at Jerry’s tomorrow, chica.” Jackie announced out of the blue, as V waved him goodbye.

“The special occasion?” V lifted a sceptic brow watching her friend waver.

“Got something to fix there.” And with that, he was gone.

*

Jerry’s diner was buzzing with electric energy, lively waitresses bee lining between the tables, taking orders with dizzying velocity. The kitchen was overheating, orders burst forth from an overworked Jerry, and Rachel’s hair stuck to her forehead as she tried to keep a fast pace without losing her mind. She looked like shit, grease on her face and gluey fingers, bags under her eyes, crumpled sleeves sticking to her elbows.

She was arranging marinated beef in her last order’s plates when Jerry whistled in her direction, beckoning her to come to him.

Rachel quickly wiped her hands on her old apron and approached her employer, already alarmed by the anxious looks he was shooting at her. He dragged her to a quiet corner just behind the kitchen door, and drew in a deep, shaky breath. 

“Listen, kid” He began as he put his hands on her shoulders “I want you to come with me and stay calm ok? Just trust old Jerry, and come with me, there is a… a particular patron who wants to see you, now.”

“Me? A patron? Who?”

Rachel’s stress rocketed as she braced herself against the door frame, she felt her knees weaken, on the verge of hyperventilating. Patron wants to see cook, never ended well. She could already see her dead corpse floating on Night City bay’s gooey waters, or being scavenged, high-end sharp objects working on her. Rachel closed her eyes; she suspected some corpo jerk venturing into the low class greasy spoons, venting on helpless staff when their modest cooking wasn’t to their titled ass’ liking.

These, she could handle, most of them were kids with big mouths, she could find a way out.

Jerry kept silent, closing his eyes in understanding, as she nodded and walked behind him, sweaty fingers twisting in her apron pockets.

Nothing could have ever prepared her for the sight unfolding before her eyes as she recognized the samurai bun, the massive shoulders, cladded in black, and the big legs, crossed on the table.

Jackie was with _that woman_ again, relaxed with both arms splayed on the chair’s back. Now that she stopped at their level, she could study her: dark haired, tatted, cybered up and dressed as heavily as the man sharing the booth with her, her demeanor was confident and fierce, a lioness, ready to pounce. Quickly, Rachel realized that the mercs Jerry was talking about the day before were none but the two patrons who had asked for her.

“You asked for the cook, here she is. What’s the problem.” Jerry crossed his arms on his puffed chest, an act she hoped he could maintain as the conversation progressed.

Rachel thought that this was worse, far worse than the corpo situation she was prepared to face.

She didn’t know what was worse than to actually meet him like that, was her special spicy beef that bad? And why did it had to be him, and in front of _her,_ and God, couldn’t she have dressed better that day? At least she had the time to wash her fucking face! Self-conscious and wary, she kept her eyes focused on the salt shakers, not wanting to look at the man who was closer to her now than she ever dreamed he would.

“Ey, viejito, who’s mentioned problem?” Jackie corrected his stance. V kept silent, curious and entertained.

“So, you did cook that, bonita.” Jackie’s voice took a softer tone now that he addressed Rachel directly, as he gestured lazily to his… empty plate.

If the food was that disgusting, why were the plates empty?

Jerry was about to intervene when Rachel gestured at him to take it easy.

“Yes, it’s m-me, sir—“ Rachel wanted to sound more confident, failed miserably.

“Jackie Welles’s the name, por amor de dios, nobody had called me sir before, HaHaHa!” He laughed, dropped his big paw on the table, making it quiver, and Rachel wanted to imitate him, damn, it was contagious.

“Rachel.”

“I know.” He smiled and Rachel gulped.

“You know, Rachel, my friend here thinks your beef was good, but… y’know what… I think it just lacked that…” He trailed, his voice dropping an octave as he leaned in, eyes leveled with hers;

“Splash of love.”


End file.
